Better Than A Baseball Bat
by Emma Arthur
Summary: The first time Lorna finds John on the floor, nearly passed out from pain, is the day after they finish clearing out the bank. It's not the last time, by far, but it's one she'll never forget.


[migraine, emeto, panicking, food, mentions of drugs, addiction and withdrawal]

I meant to edit and polish this a bit more before posting, but it's been sitting on my computer for nearly two months, so I'm clearly not going to do it. Might as well put it out there anyway.

This is set about a week after Reasons To Live, though you don't need to read that first to understand.

The title is from what Evangeline says to John in the flashback : "A pretty face like yours deserves better than a baseball bat."

* * *

The first time Lorna finds John on the floor, nearly passed out from pain, is the day after they finish clearing out the bank. It's not the last time, by far, but it's one she'll never forget.

They've decided to wait until they at least have some furniture before talking to Sage and her friends about moving here. Lorna wants to get them off the streets quickly, but they need to be equipped to receive five new people, and to start organizing supply runs beforehand. As it is, they're running short on money, and thus on food, and they haven't yet managed to find safe suppliers.

Lorna almost trips over John, in the darkness of his bedroom's doorstep. She hadn't noticed yet that he chose the one room that has working blinds, although it's not the largest or the one with the best view. The only furniture inside is a banged-up desk they've managed to save from the wreckage, and a pile of blankets that serves as John's bed. He insisted that Lorna have the single camping mattress they found in a ruined closet, saying he didn't mind sleeping directly on the floor.

But right now, Lorna is fairly sure John isn't sleeping. He's lying curled up by the open door, his hands pressed to his head, and even without light Lorna can see how tense his body is. Staying still for a few seconds, she can hear his ragged breathing, the near moans coming out of his mouth every time he breathes out.

"John?" she calls−not loudly, but John lets out an actual moan and presses his hands on his ears harder. "What's wrong?" Lorna whispers.

John opens a bleary eye and looks at her for a fraction of a second before he closes it again, wincing. He tries to say something, but no sound comes out.

"What is it?" Lorna asks again, crouching over him. She's careful not to touch him−she's learned in the last couple of weeks that he rarely likes to be touched.

Can it be something to do with his addiction? She doesn't see what could make him behave this way, even very strong cravings shouldn't hit him this badly. She's seen enough of them to know. Or is he in so much pain from his back injury that he can't move? Lorna quickly checks that the metal fragments under his skin haven't moved. She can't feel anything out of place, but she's no doctor.

"John?" she tries again. She watches sadly as he recoils from her even further, but she really needs to know what's wrong. She need to know if she can touch him, if she can move him. Her instinct to just call 911 will get them nowhere−John's a fugitive, running from the Sentinel Services who arrested his military coworkers.

John clears his throat, painfully. "Migraine," he croaks out.

"Shit," Lorna mutters under her breath. She doesn't know much about migraines, though she's heard they can be excruciating. Briefly, she feels a surge of annoyance against John for not telling her about this before.

But they've known each other for all of two weeks, if she doesn't count their time at the Institute, where they lived under the same roof but barely ever spoke to each other. She can't blame him. She hasn't exactly told him everything either.

"What can I do?" she asks, her whisper even lower. John's mutation enhances his senses, so he can probably hear her even through his hands, still pressed over his ears. Damn, is his mutation what causes this? He said something about sensory overload, the other day.

Every mutation has its downsides, but that's a shitty one.

"'thing," John sighs. "Wait."

"Only thing I can do is wait?"

"'n' quiet."

"Let's get you to bed, at least," Lorna murmurs.

She puts a hand on John's shoulder, but he doesn't even react, like he can't feel it. She tries to pull on his arm, but he just curls up tighter, with a moan.

Alright, then. Lorna changes strategies and stands up to get the blankets from the floor. She wishes she could get him on her mattress, but this will have to do for now. She slips the thinner folded blanket under his head, doing her best not to disturb him too much, and drapes the other one over his body.

"'ks," John murmurs. _Thanks_, Lorna translates.

"How long does it last?" she whispers.

"'pends. Hours. Days. Bad."

"This one's bad?"

"Mh," John confirms.

Lorna can't imagine days of this. The bare pain in John's voice is unbearable. _Stay in the present_, she reminds herself. She's seen people in this much pain before. At the hospital. And worse, at the first hospital she spent time in, the one that was more of a prison for mutants. On days when it felt like it would never end, she tried to stay in the moment. Dream of a future, but don't hope for one.

She sits down on the floor and puts her hand on his arm, trying to offer quiet comfort.

They stay immobile for a while, the only sound in the room John's irregular breathing. Lorna tries to empty her mind, to ignore the part of her that wants to curl up beside him and never get up again. It's been a rough few weeks, her mood swinging farther than it has in years. She hasn't been off treatment since her diagnosis at thirteen.

John moves suddenly under her hand, surprising her. He barely manages to sit up and throw away the blanket he's using as a pillow before he throws up the contents of his stomach on the floor.

"Shit shit shit!" Lorna mutters, catching him before his head falls back down onto his own vomit. John is impossibly heavy in her arms, nearly lifeless. He heaves again, and Lorna does her best to get his hair off his face.

"S'rry," he mutters when he's done, leaning into Lorna's arms.

"Is it the migraine or something else?" Lorna asks. Not that there's anything she can do, if John is really sick. His skin is pale and clammy, but cool, so she doesn't think that he has a fever.

"No," is all the answer John manages. Just the migraine, then. A migraine that makes a seasoned soldier puke and nearly scream in pain.

"I need to move you," Lorna says.

John puts a hand on the ground, trying to sit up. His arms are trembling though, so Lorna hoists him up the best she can, awkwardly and painfully. In the end, John barely avoids the pool of vomit and just rolls a few feet away, curling up on himself again.

Lorna turns her head away when she sees tears running down his face. It feels wrong to stare.

"Can you stay alone for a few minutes?" she asks in a murmur.

John makes a vague move with his hand to tell her to go. Lorna gets up, looking back at him hesitantly, but there's nothing she can do for him right now.

She comes back with a glass of water for John and the closest thing to a mop that she could find. She does her best to wipe the mess off the floor, wrinkling her nose at the smell. If John is oversensitive to light and sound right now, is smell just as bad?

It doesn't go away, unfortunately. The rag Lorna found is not enough to scrub the floor clean. She gives up and walks out of the room again to put it away, leaving it in the bathroom sink for now. They don't have running water, but they've been making do with buckets John goes to fill in the nearest public fountain, and bottled water.

Lorna grabs her mattress and blankets from her room on her way back. Maybe she can at least make John more comfortable.

Coaxing him onto the thin mattress takes longer than she expected. In the few minutes she was gone, something has changed and John is too out of it to hear her anymore. He's still curled up on himself, tenser than a guitar string, but he now moans every time Lorna tries to touch him.

"John, please," she tries, but he just moans louder.

She grabs him bodily, with the assistance of the metal bracelets and the watch on his wrists, and he finally uncurls enough to roll onto the mattress.

_What do I do?_ Lorna thinks in a loop, lost. John said the only thing to do was wait it out, but this can't be normal. John's face is whiter than a sheet, and he's in so much pain. She can't just do nothing.

Yet she can't think of anything. Calling a doctor is impossible, and she doesn't know anyone with medical training. Painkillers are clearly not an option, even if she had some, not when John just kicked his addiction. She wonders if his wrecked physical and mental state triggered the migraine, or maybe made it worse. He's not in any state to tell her if he has any specific medication, but again, she'd have no way of obtaining it anyway.

Lorna takes a step back when she realizes she's panicking. This won't do John any good. She can't handle this on her own, she decides.

She steps out of the room and walks all the way to the front door. She's not comfortable with leaving John alone, but she needs air. She's hyperventilating, in the early stages of a panic attack.

You can say anything about psychiatric hospitals, about how awful it was and how much like a prison, but the truth is also that for the last year, she hasn't had to handle anything on her own. She hasn't had to make any decision, because none were left to her. And as depriving as that is, it means that every little decision now is like jumping off a bridge.

Lorna stares at the burn phone for a while, willing herself to calm down. Can she look after John for what may be days, unsure what to do, without any outside guidance? Can she handle herself in this situation? She doesn't know what state she'll be in in the morning, or even in an hour. She could let him die or slip into a coma or something and not even know.

Jumping off the bridge in this case means hitting the call button. She truly panics during the five second the phone rings, and she can barely breathe by the time Sage answers.

"Yes?"

"It's Lorna," Lorna just manages to rasp out.

"Lorna? We said we shouldn't call. What's going on?"

"Are you high?"

"What does it matter if I'm high?" Sage sighs. Lorna can almost hear her roll her eyes. "Kicks isn't LSD, Lorna, it makes my mind clearer, not fuzzy."

"So you're high."

Strangely the curt conversation is successful at calming Lorna down.

"And you're a bitch. What do you want?" Sage asks.

"Do you know anything about migraines?"

"What? Why?"

Lorna sighs, trying to decide how much to explain. "I'm stuck with a friend who's in the middle of one, and I don't know what to do," she says.

"Oh Lord, Lorna, what did you get yourself into this time?"

"I just...Look, I just need to know−"

"I don't know anything about migraines," Sage says. "My brain doesn't work like that. But...I could look it up for you."

"Thank you," Lorna breathes.

"Give me a sec. Okay, is your friend used to having them or is it the first time?"

"He knew what it was, so it's probably not the first."

"Good. So he can speak?"

"Right now he's pretty out of it, but he could earlier."

"Okay. Basically all sources say it will probably pass on its own, and there's not much to do unless he suddenly becomes blind."

Lorna chokes. "That can happen?"

"Rarely," Sage says. Lorna has a surge of gratefulness that Sage is restricting herself from giving her exact probabilities.

"He threw up earlier," she says.

"Migraines can make people nauseous."

"But it's not a bad sign?"

"Not especially. You should just makes sure he stays hydrated."

"Okay. What else can I do?"

"Not a lot," Sage answers. "Remove any source of noise and light, any perfume, make sure he knows you're here and he's safe. I'm reading out from the manual here. There's just nothing else."

"He looks really bad," Lorna says.

"It's scary, but it will pass, okay?"

"He said it might last for days."

"Lorna, listen to me," Sage says sternly. "Panicking is useless. There's an eighty-nine percent chance that he will be completely fine."

"Is that good?" Lorna asks, fretting too much to make her own calculations. She knows probabilities. She studied engineering, for God's sake. But in the face of a health crisis, it's all going straight out the window.

"Yes, Lorna, it's good," Says says dryly, clearly reaching the limits of her patience.

"Thank you."

She feels ridiculous, suddenly, standing there outside the abandoned bank. "I'm sorry, I just−"

"I get it," Sage says. "Don't worry about it."

"Thanks," Lorna repeats. "I'm going to go back to him."

"Good. Bye."

Lorna nearly smiles at Sage's curt sendoff. She's probably exhausted her social capacities for now. It's one of the things that started their strange on-off friendship, recognizing their mutual neurodivergence.

John has stopped moaning when she comes back. He's not asleep, Lorna doesn't think so. It's unsettling in a worrying way to see him so still, barely breathing, unaware of his surroundings. Lorna frets for a while, unsure what to do.

When it becomes clear that John isn't going to respond to her whispered calls, she settles down on the floor close to him, crossing her legs, prepared to wait. She won't leave him again in this state.

"It's okay," she murmurs periodically, just in case he can hear her. "You're safe. We're safe. Everything's okay."

Maybe she needs to hear it more than he does.

* * *

It's only three painful, agonizingly long days later that John is finally well enough to walk further than the doorstep of his bedroom. His whole body feels like he just got run over by a truck, after spending so much time on the floor in extreme tension. His head still hurts, but it's not much more than an annoyance at the back of his mind, though he has both his ear defenders and his sunglasses firmly in place.

"Hey," Lorna smiles when he walks into their makeshift kitchen.

John removes the ear defenders before speaking. It's only the two of them, and they're far enough away from the main road that he can handle the noise. Nothing is worth the sound of his own amplified voice inside his mind.

"Hi. You have any food I could eat? I'm kinda starving," he says sheepishly.

Given that he hasn't eaten more than a couple bowls of clear stock cube broth in three days, it's not really surprising. He feels like he could eat an ox.

"Nausea's finally gone?"

"Yes. Dizziness too. Head's not pounding anymore. I'm fine."

"You said that two days ago when you couldn't even stand up," Lorna rolls her eyes, grabbing a few cans. "Baked beans?"

"Sure." Even cheap canned beans sound heavenly right now. "It's actually true this time, though."

"You do look better. Come on, sit."

John winces at the chair grating against the floor when she pulls it up for him. Lorna empties the can of beans into a plate and puts it in front of him. "Thanks," he says. "You're not eating?"

"I'm not quite ready for baked beans for breakfast, thank you," Lorna says. "Even the hospital food was better than this."

John shrugs, wolfing down the beans. "It's not so bad."

"Clearly," Lorna raises an eyebrow.

"I'm hungry, okay?"

"Right. So, since you're doing better−"

"Yes?" John encourages at Lorna's hesitation.

"I didn't want to bother you with this before, but I need to know more."

"About the migraines?"

"Yes. I almost panicked when it got really bad and you weren't responding because I didn't know what to do. If we're going to do this, live here and maybe even lead a station, we need to be honest to each other."

"I agree," John says. "I'm sorry I left you in the dark. I wasn't expecting to have one so soon, but I should have. They're not...predictable, or regular or anything."

And John hasn't had a predictable, regular schedule since the Marines, so that probably doesn't help. The last migraine he's had got lost in the worse of his withdrawal, only increasing the frequency at which he threw up at Evangeline's feet. He never told her about the pain, and she probably thinks his screams were out of rage at being chained to the bed. He treated the migraines before that with overdose-level intakes of painkillers, which did very little for the pain but had the side-effect of making him forget most of it afterwards. The truth is that he doesn't really know what his body's natural, healthy reaction is supposed to be anymore.

Even this migraine was something new. The demanding, chest-constricting cravings never left him, were made worse by the pain. It's a new element he'll have to adjust to.

"Are they triggered by something?"

"Too much sensory overload over a length of time, usually. Then the actual trigger can be a loud noise or a smell, something that wouldn't normally be a big issue. Sometimes I can tell it's coming up to a day before it really starts, but not always. I got caught by surprise."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?" Lorna asks.

"Whatever you did this time was...good," John says. He only has vague memories of Lorna's presence, sitting by his side during the worse of it, and he knows it calmed him down.

"I didn't really do anything."

"You were there." John looks her in the eye, noticing how tired she seems. She probably hasn't slept much in the last three days. He feels a pang of guilt. "I had more than a few migraines in really inconvenient places like enemy territory, or back alleys. Knowing that anyone could get the jump on me and I couldn't do anything to defend myself is...scary. Having you here, I felt safe. So thank you."

Lorna nods solemnly.

"There's really not much else to do but get me a bucket and get me away from noise and lights."

"I think I got that one," Lorna says. "Are they always this bad?"

"No, this was a pretty big one. I don't usually pass out or dissociate fully, and I get better if I manage to sleep."

"But you've had worse than this?"

"Occasionally, if I'm very stressed or tired. But it's not often."

"Did you already have migraines at the Institute?"

"Yeah," John answers. "It was pretty bad back before you arrived, but then the Professor found a way to help me control all the sensory input I get."

"How?"

John shrugs. "He put some kind of block in my mind. And then, a lot of telepathic training."

"How did you deal with it, in school? It was always noisy with all the younger kids."

"Ear defenders, mainly," John answers. "Jean had a room I could go to by the infirmary. It was in the underground levels, so it was quiet and dark."

"You got to go down there?"

"I was usually trying not to open my eyes or puke my guts out, so I didn't see much of it back then," John says. "I got the whole tour when I started X-Men training though."

"You did? I didn't even know you trained."

"Yeah. Summer after I graduated. But I left pretty quickly to enlist. It just...wasn't for me."

"I thought about doing it, too," Lorna says.

"Why didn't you?"

"The Professor and Jean convinced me that becoming an engineer like I really wanted would be more useful. But obviously that didn't happen."

"You dropped out?"

"I got arrested," Lorna snorts. "I couldn't really keep up with my studies in mandatory psychiatric care, and the university kicked me out anyway."

John shakes his head sadly. "So much waste," he says. "This place, the kids at the orphanage, us...none of it should have happened."

"Maybe it shouldn't have. But it did."

"Yeah," John sighs. "And we're here to try to make something positive out of it."

"Let's get back to work, then."

* * *

I hope you liked this little one-shot. I plan to write at least one more for the Broken Toys series, probably set after Pulse's 'death'.

Please tell me what you thought!


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